David Lampton, a leading US China scholar at Johns Hopkins, excoriates Jim Mann, author of the recently published “The China Fantasy”, effectively saying that the political/business establishment view of China in the US has NOT held out the prospect of eventual political liberalization, driven (in part at least) by trade and economic liberalization. (I think Lampton and others make a fair point in saing the China focused //academic// establishment in the west has not embraced the `trade leads to democracy’ notion, but that’s very different from the messages, implicit and explicit, that have come from the business and economic establishments over the last 15 years or so.) Lampton’s arguments ripping the book are here…
[Foreign Policy, Washington, May 2007, web edn., < ]
“>http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3837&page=1>]